The blessing of the Internet is its ability to ignore distance. Sometimes this is its curse too.

I didn't know Gregory Blake in the way that the normal world respects. We lived far apart and never met in person, never spoke on the phone. I have only a vague idea of what he looked like, mostly from a postage stamp sized picture or two.

But the best measure of 'distance' on the Internet is not miles or kilometers, but six degrees of Kevin Bacon; how many connections between you and there.

In Internet distance, I've been zero degrees from Greg for so long that I have no idea exactly how long it's been. We were both part of a long-standing social group that hung out online together and chatted about everything that people chat about, and in that time he touched the direction of my life in various ways.

Gregory Blake died this afternoon.

Distance is an illusion.